Gary Younge

It took the best part of 200 years for the law to catch up. In Barack Obama's candidacy we are now learning how far America's political culture has come in this regard and how far it still has to go. Because, for all the misty-eyed liberal talk of him ushering in a post-racial era, the past few weeks have seen Obama fighting not just for the nomination but for his patriotic legitimacy. Constantly questioning his national loyalty and obfuscating his religious affiliation, both the media and his opponents have sought to cast him not only as anti-American but un-American and at times even non-American. His bid to transcend race appears to be crashing on the rocks of racism. "Race is intertwined with a broader notion that he is not one of us," Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Centre, told the New York Times. Pew conducted an extensive examination of voter attitudes, particularly among Democrats who have an unfavourable view of Obama. "They react negatively to people who are seen as different." The point here is not whether white people are prepared to vote for him. First, they clearly are. Of the 10 whitest states to have voted so far, Obama has won nine. And there are countless reasons why people don't back him that have nothing to do with race - not least that they prefer another candidate on their merits. At issue is the insidious and racist manner in which his candidacy is now being framed as that of a nefarious, foreign interloper whose allegiance to his country is inherently inauthentic and instinctively suspect. Some of these charges have long emerged from familiar and predictable places. As early as last year, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News falsely claimed that he had attended an Islamist madrasa while a young boy in Indonesia. When rightwing radio hosts refer to him they generally emphasise and repeat his middle name - Hussein - even though Obama rarely uses it. But soon these attacks shifted from the political margins to the mainstream. During the recent ABC debate, Obama was grilled about his refusal to wear an American flag tiepin. One of the moderators asked Obama of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright: "You do believe he's as patriotic as you are?" Having given up on the African-American vote, the Clintons have clearly decided that it makes more electoral sense to collude with these attacks than it does to raise the tenor of the discussion and challenge them. During the ABC debate, Hillary applauded the line of questioning. "You know, these are problems, I think these are issues that are legitimate and should be explored." Being foreign, Muslim or unpatriotic should not be treated as slurs. But in a post 9/11 framework, the Clintons know full well how these allusions will be understood and what the consequences might be. When asked whether Obama was a Muslim, Hillary said that he wasn't: "There is nothing to base that on - as far as I know." Three days after Obama made his landmark speech on race, Bill Clinton said of a potential match-up between Hillary Clinton and McCain: "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." The implication was that Obama doesn't love his country and all this "racial" stuff is just getting in the way. All this does have an effect. By February, 80% of Americans had heard rumours that Obama was Muslim. Even after the furore over the Rev Wright, one in 10 Democrats still believed this. A recent Pew poll showed that the only character trait on which Obama loses to Clinton is patriotism. Exit polls in Pennsylvania revealed that 18% of Democrats said that race mattered to them in this contest - and just 63% of them said that they would support Obama in a general election. Unable to beat Obama on delegates and still unlikely to beat him in the popular vote, Hillary Clinton has just one strategy left - to persuade superdelegates that Obama is unelectable. She has tried branding him as inexperienced and slick-tongued, and neither of those have worked. At this stage she has just one argument left: his race. For several months now, her aides have been whispering to whoever would listen that America would never elect a black candidate. In desperation, some are now raising their voices. But their accusations are not only cynical - by most accounts they also seem to be wrong. It seems they have underestimated the potential of the American electorate. Polls show that in the states won with less than a five-point margin in 2004 Obama does far better than Clinton against McCain. The problem is not that Hillary Clinton is still in the race. She has every right to be. It is that she is running the kind of race that she is. Having failed to convince voters of the viability of her own candidacy, she is now committed to proving the unviability of his. Hillary once said it takes a village to raise a child. Now she seems determined to destroy the village in order to save it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...laryclinton.usa

It is one of the enduring paradoxes of American racism that those black Americans most likely to exercise their full rights as citizens - to vote, to stand, to speak out - are the most likely to be branded as unpatriotic. "Of course the fact that a person believes in racial equality doesn't prove that he's a communist," said the chairman of a loyalty review board, one of the McCarthyite kangaroo courts that sat in judgment of possible communists, in the 50s. "But it certainly makes you look twice, doesn't it? You can't get away from the fact that racial equality is part of the communist line." Assuming that African-Americans could not possibly work out that white supremacy was not in their interests by themselves, their detractors routinely accused them of acting under influences both foreign and malign. The FBI wasted millions of dollars and hours trying in vain to prove that Martin Luther King was a communist. For those who would not know their place and were not assassinated, the punishment was often the revocation of whatever rights of citizenship they had. Already denied the vote, freedom of movement and association, Paul Robeson was refused a passport in 1950 and confined to the US. When his lawyers asked why, they were told that "his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries". In 1963 the intellectual and activist WEB Dubois was similarly grounded without passport privileges and so moved to the recently liberated Ghana. The struggle for racial equality in America has always essentially been a battle for full citizenship. In a country founded on the principles of the enlightenment and built on the backs of slaves, it has long exposed the tension between the country's promise and its practice. The founding fathers held both that all men were equal - and that a slave was worth three-fifths of a man. Sooner or later, the nation would implode under the weight of these constitutional contradictions. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...laryclinton.usa

Some will wonder in years to come how, with markets wavering, the Fed ready to pronounce and the American economy flirting with stagflation - or, worse still, recession - the top political story in the US became a story about race, even for a few hours. Not even a story. A speech. A good speech - a speech that could have been delivered any time over the past 30 years, but also, somehow, had to be delivered now. Essentially, Senator Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia yesterday said nothing new, even if it contradicted what he has said before. Back when he was addressing the Democratic convention in 2004, he claimed: "There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America." Such realities are not created by fiat, and the past few weeks have proved how audacious such hopeful statements were. The "racial stalemate" that he referred to acknowledges that race is a festering sore in America - not because some people are sensitive and others are mean, but because for as long as there has been an America, black and white people have had completely different experiences of what being an American means. It is difficult to believe that Obama had only just written yesterday's speech. If it had not been his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, someone or something else would have opened that wound on which Obama has so eloquently been applying balm these past few months. To most African Americans, the Rev Wright's fiery critiques of the US were as banal as Bill Cosby's screeds against bad parenting; as common a thing to find around a black dinner table as hot pepper sauce. But he had to say it now because he is not standing to be head of a black supper club, but president of a country where most white people have probably never had dinner with a black family, let alone gone to their church. He said it for those who seriously believed that everyone had bought into and benefited from the American dream. To those who did not hear, could not understand or would not listen, it was news that some were disaffected not just with what America has become but what it long has been. With Wright's sermons zipping around YouTube, Obama had to speak both to those who found his statements banal and to those who believed them to be ballistic. He had to intervene before Wright became Willie Horton with a dog collar. To that extent the speech probably worked. He acknowledged white disadvantage and black alienation; he refused to disown Wright for the same reason he refused to disown his own white grandmother - because good people in bad societies will sometimes say and do bad things. He acknowledged there were problems and then said "Kum ba ya". He hoped for better times and said everyone had to do their bit. That may be enough for now. It may even, for the time being, put to rest the notion, peddled by the former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, that he would not have got as far as he has were he not African American. We know nothing about the pastors of Hillary Clinton and John McCain - or how offensive their views might be to African Americans. I think we can safely say that had Obama been white he would not have had to make this speech. We can, with equal certainty, say that it won't be the last time that race comes up, particularly if he becomes the nominee. Last month US News & World Report put Obama on the cover with the question: "Does Race Still Matter?" Those who believed his candidacy was evidence of a post-racial America now have their answer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/1...uselections2008

During his 1984 presidential bid Jesse Jackson vowed to choose a woman as his running mate - the only candidate to do so during the primaries. Having drawn in a new cohort of voters, he mobilised the "rainbow coalition" of blacks, Latinos, trade unionists, feminists, peace activists and gays to mount a credible challenge to the Democratic party establishment. Originally treated as a fringe candidate, he came in third with 20% of the vote. So even as the party sought to sideline him as an individual, they knew that he had awakened a constituency whose demands they would have to engage with. Walter Mondale, the eventual nominee, chose Geraldine Ferraro as his vice-presidential partner - an important first for a major party and a big victory for the advancement of women in American politics. In the wake of her selection, recalls professor and activist Angela Davis, Jackson supporters wore buttons announcing: "Jesse opened the door, Ferraro walked through!" Whether the relationship was quite so causal is debatable. But what is clear is that the nature of Jackson's candidacy was instrumental in creating the context in which choosing Ferraro was possible. The notion that struggles for equality are interconnected and that we all rise together or can all fall separately is evidently one that was lost on Ferraro. Last week Ferraro, who is supporting Hillary Clinton, claimed that presidential hopeful Barack Obama is only leading in the Democratic primaries because he is black. "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she said. "And if he was a woman of any colour, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." This is clearly ludicrous. True, like every other candidate, Obama has to run on his story, and race is an important part of that story. But if being a black man is such an electoral advantage, then how is it that they make up 6% of the population and only 1% of the senate (Obama)? As the recent controversy over his former pastor shows, for all the votes that Obama gets because he is black there are at least as many that he loses for the same reason. But when it comes to the absurd notion that Obama is the candidate of privilege, Ferraro is sadly not alone. The last few months have seen a procession of older, white feminists claim that Obama's presidential ambitions represent both a setback for women and a victory for race over gender. Most shocking, given her lifetime of thoughtful and impassioned activism, was Gloria Steinem, who argued in an article in the New York Times: "Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House ... Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women." Without acknowledging that black men in America were lynched for attempting to exercise their vote for almost 50 years after white women went freely to the polls, her argument was as selective in its accuracy as it was divisive in its effect. Steinem would later claim she was misunderstood. Given the clarity of expression for which she is renowned and that this was the central thrust of her piece, it is difficult to see how this can have happened. Then came Robin Morgan, author of a famous feminist essay, Goodbye to All That, who revived her 30-year-old refrain for modern times. "A few non-racist countries may exist - but sexism is everywhere," she wrote. "So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the centuries, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as black Americans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles?" Recently a regional director for the National Organisation of Women (Now) told the Washington Post: "There are some people who promote Barack Obama because they want anybody but a woman. Would they like a white man instead of a black man? Of course. But they'll take a black man over a woman." This attempt to play race off against gender as though they were bargaining chips is not new. In the wake of the American civil war a fierce debate raged over the 15th amendment to the US constitution, which planned to give the vote to black men but not any women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the nation's leading suffragettes, believed that to enfranchise black men was a licence for an explosion of sexual violence. In the feminist paper the Revolution, she wrote that, forced to chose: "We prefer Bridget and Dinah at the ballot box to Patrick and Sambo." Black men have, at times, been similarly exclusionary. "The only position for women in SNCC [the student wing of the civil rights movement] is prone," Stokely Carmichael once said. Indeed, counterposing race and gender in this way is about as reductive and reactionary as identity politics can be. For a start, it relegates black women to a subsidiary role, treating them not as whole human beings but divided selves embodying binary identities that are in conflict and contradiction. Sometimes they're black. Sometimes they're women. Somehow they never seem to get to be both at the same time. "I really believe the biggest divide in the world is men versus women, but most people don't seem to feel that way," says Marj Signer, president of Now's Virginia chapter. "A lot of people identify with race first, and so that can mean Obama. They forget about sexism." Or maybe black women just saw where Signer was coming from and decided to head in another direction. To treat identities as monolithic and interchangeable in this way is deeply flawed. Class, gender, race, sexual orientation - you name the identity and it will have its own roots, dynamics and dimensions. Sexism and racism have different histories and operate in different ways. To try to simply exchange one for the other - even for rhetorical purposes - won't teach you much about either. Ranking identities as though they belong in definitive league tables is an insidious process that seeks to privilege one person's experience and pain over another's. In these discussions context is everything. To compare and contrast the qualitative differences between how certain identities function can be instructive. But to rank them quantitatively as though one inherently takes precedence over the other - always and in all ways - is the first step towards fundamentalism. This is the kind of competition for which there are not only no winners but, in this particular case, for which there is no need. Both Obama and Clinton are unworthy vessels for this kind of antagonism. Neither is standing on an anti-racist or feminist agenda. There is no suggestion that she would be any worse on race than he is or that he would be any worse on gender than she is. Pitting underrepresented groups against each other in this way simply undermines any potential for building the kind of progressive coalitions necessary to eradicate the very obstacles to the emergence of more black and female candidates. If this is what the Democrats do to each other, just imagine what fun the Republicans will have. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...ections2008.usa

I'm not being defensive at all. Indeed whom would I be defending. In terms of Europe reckoning with its colonial past the world hasn't moved at all in my book. Otherwise how would you make sense of someone like Blunkett saying "And those who come into our home - for that is what it is - should accept those norms just as we would have to do if we went elsewhere." That's news to people in India, Ghana, Rhodesia and so on. Or Gordon Brown saying "The days of Britain having to apologise for its colonial history are over. We should talk, and rightly so, about British values that are enduring, because they stand for some of the greatest ideas in history: tolerance, liberty, civic duty, that grew in Britain and influenced the rest of the world. Our strong traditions of fair play, of openness, of internationalism, these are great British values." Britain never apologised. And tolerance, liberty, civic duty and the rest of it certainly didn't hold much sway in the Kenyan concentration camps or the segregated caribbean. It's not like the Americans were the first to invade Iraq. The Eastern committee of the British government decided in August 1918 that Iraq should be ruled by an "Arab façade". According ot Lord Curzon it would be "ruled and administered under British guidance and controlled by a native Mohammedan and, as far as possible, an Arab staff." The arabs would eventually be granted independence, said Sir Mark Sykes, if they "proved themselves worthy". Until then, said Curzon Iraq would be absorbed into the British Empire "veiled by constitutional fictions as a protectorate, a sphere of influence, a buffer state, and so on." Sound familiar So no in our understanding of how Great Britain got to be great we have not moved on. And the French, Belgians and others are frankly worse. Obviously colonialism was driven by class interests. But it was sustained and supported by a sense of racial and national superiority. Unless that is you think the 300 families of imperial France ran the whole show from Martinique to Algeria to through Senegal and Reunion by themselves. The point I am making is not that we don't chastise American foreign policy. But that we do so in a way that creates real possibilities for solidarity with the US and global left. That means learning the lessons about how these imperial adventures gain traction in the wider population, who benefits, how they are defeated, and so on. Luckily in England we have plenty of resources because we've done it time and time again.

I agree on your assessment of liberals and the left. This war has in fact highlighted that difference as have the "debates" if you can call them that over multiculturalism at home. I think the party affiliation in this respect is immaterial. When I think Labour I don't think "the Left" although I know there are some leftists in there.

Gary, do you feel that this phenomina was almost inevitable, given the scale of defeats suffered by the left over the past 30 years? A kind of semi-collective". I would like to be on the winning side for a change" How would a defeat for America and the UK play out with them, do you see it re-altering their world view? The dominant trend in social democratic thinking has always been more nationalist than internationalist. I think this war simply exposed that fissure. With Blair and the Labour leadership I think there was definitely a decision to be on the winning side. Morally it was entirely bankrupt. But strategically it wasn't as ridiculous as it now looked. They calculated that the smaller nations on the security council could be bullied into backing it, that Saddam had weapons (I certainly thought he did too, but that was no reason to bomb him and there were inspectors there anyhow), that America was going to do it anyway, that they would win anyway and who would want to be on the wrong side of that. Trouble is they got their sums wrong. But these people who did the Euston Manifesto and so on were, with a few exceptions, never particularly left wing and I think popped their cherry in terms of the arguments for "liberal" intervention with Bosnia - which frankly was a more tricky issue even if I didn't agree with them then. I don't see a defeat altering their world view for very long. I feel like the British have always seen this as America's war and the Americans have a habit of folding every event into their worldview rather than the other way around, whether it fits or not. In this case the logic is - we came to try and help these people have the great kind of democracy we have. But they don't want it. So screw them. Why should our great young men die to save these idiots from themselves. And that's the rationale coming from most of the Democratic leadership!

The quote you use was from an article written on October 15th 2001. The context is important. Neither Spain nor London bombings had happened yet. I was predicting them. I think there are a few reasons why there has been no terror attacks since 9/11 in the states, foremost among them being that they had the first one. The demographic profile of the Muslim community in the US is also very different. US Muslims are generally wealthier and better educated than the population at large. The pool of alienation and resentment which provides the political base from which bombers might emerge - the bombers themselves in Europe have been well-healed but the context is one of greater political resistance - is less pronounced here. Indeed, according to a Pew survey that portion of the Muslim population here most likely to sympathise with violent acts are not from immigrant communities but African American converts. I think a terrorist outrage - God forbid - would increase pressure on Bush to pull out the troops. Most Americans I know disagree. They have logic on their side - acts of terrorism generally produce the kind of fear that prompts reactionary responses. But I think Americans are able to draw the conclusion that the war has made them more vulnerable and the war isn't working. I hope we never find out.

The quote you use was from an article written on October 15th 2001. The context is important. Neither Spain nor London bombings had happened yet. I was predicting them. I think there are a few reasons why there has been no terror attacks since 9/11 in the states, foremost among them being that they had the first one. The demographic profile of the Muslim community in the US is also very different. US Muslims are generally wealthier and better educated than the population at large. The pool of alienation and resentment which provides the political base from which bombers might emerge - the bombers themselves in Europe have been well-healed but the context is one of greater political resistance - is less pronounced here. Indeed, according to a Pew survey that portion of the Muslim population here most likely to sympathise with violent acts are not from immigrant communities but African American converts. I think a terrorist outrage - God forbid - would increase pressure on Bush to pull out the troops. Most Americans I know disagree. They have logic on their side - acts of terrorism generally produce the kind of fear that prompts reactionary responses. But I think Americans are able to draw the conclusion that the war has made them more vulnerable and the war isn't working. I hope we never find out.

Good question. With Bush I think it is the fear and horror of the original attack. The further away we move from the attack (that's from the same piece written on October 15th) the more difficult it becomes to evoke. After the attacks people wanted action. Bush gave it to them. None could say he didn't do anything. I remember being in the US in October 2001. Talking to people about the UN or other countries have responded different to injustices (Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa for example) Met with blank stares. People wanted something done. It was understandable but not very smart. More incredible is how Blair got away with it. A Labour prime minister in a country that was not hit. There was almost a complete collapse of any link between the political culture and the political class. British people didn't want it and couldn't stop it. There was no viable party they could turn to - unlike in Spain - that would take action. In a sense he didn't get away with it because that is primarily why he had to leave prematurely. But he managed to jump before he was pushed.

When it comes to "liberal" Europeans attitude to US foreign policy at the moment I would say there have been two dominant strands. One has rightly attacked American foreign policy but has occasionally done so with an air of moral superiority that is laughable given Europe's own history. I see little evidence from French or Belgian criticisms of this war, for example, that would suggest that the critics would relate this to what happened in the Congo or Algeria. Instead it is understood discretely in the history of US imperialism alongside Vietnam, Korea and the first Gulf war. This isn't a competition to see who's worse but to get things in perspective. What the US has done in Iraq is not aberrant but consistent with the colonial projects of the last couple centuries. The other, as you rightly point out, has been those "liberal hawks" who bought the whole agenda hook, line and sinker. The debacle in Iraq has embarrassed some into recanting, but many peculiarly feel emboldened. For them this wasn't a one-off mistake. They have transposed their reactionary views about the war to supporting wars on multi-culturalism and civil liberties at home. Their books have a familiar feel. "I was left wing once. I went on a demonstration and refused to buy South African fruit. Then 9/11 made me see the world in a different light. Now I feel the left has betrayed me and the causes I believe in. I stand for Enlightenment values. They are against them. I am the Left. They are not." A friend recently described these folks to me as sub-prime commentators. Their departure is really just a market correction. They were never particularly left-wing in the first place. Now they are gone. No harm no foul. We won't miss them.

There is no overestimating the popular reverence Americans have for their men and women in uniform. A direct translation of "squaddie", a term steeped in class contempt which betrays as much antipathy and ambivalence as it does admiration in the UK, simply does not exist in the US. Fighting for your country is generally regarded as the ultimate form of public service. Flight attendants will announce the presence of an active service man or woman to cheers from the rest of the plane. At anti-war demonstrations, protesters wave banners proclaiming "Support the troops, oppose the war." The nation may be irrevocably split on the moral value of any war, but when it comes to backing the people who are executing it, they speak as one. If such widespread veneration for the military in a democracy is problematic, the reasons underpinning it extend beyond hyper-patriotism. Thanks to the draft during the Korean and Vietnam wars, many Americans have a close relative who is a veteran. The suburban myth that liberals abused soldiers returning from Vietnam has made progressives anxious to be vocal in their support for the military. And, whatever its reputation abroad, since the second world war the US military has been viewed domestically as an instrument of progressive social change. It was one of the first American institutions to formally integrate. Thanks to the GI bill, which gave housing or an education to those returning from the second world war, it was instrumental in creating the postwar middle class. Finally, in a nation with no safety net, the military is one of the few government-backed means of advancement for the poor. "I was living in a trailer with my grandmother," says Darrell Anderson, 25, who earned a purple heart in Iraq and later went awol. "I was broke and I needed education and healthcare, and if I had to go to war for them that was just what I had to do. Going to the military was my last chance. My last option." If all else fails, you can yomp and shoot your way to the American dream. So America's support for its military is as deep as it is complex. While that support may coincide with the backing for a given war, it may at times also contradict it. This may be one of those times. The showdown between the Bush administration and the Democratic Congress over the war in Iraq currently hinges on which side can claim ownership of the troops' interests, and harness that public affection to bolster their position. President Bush has requested more money from Congress for the war. Congress has passed a bill that gives him more than he requested so long as he sets a timetable for withdrawing the troops. Bush has vowed to veto the bill, effectively demanding a blank cheque for the war. The Democrats do not have enough votes to override the veto. Bush cannot get the money without Congressional approval. For as long as the stalemate continues no money can be earmarked for the war, and at some stage the cash will dry up. In these deliberations the plight of Iraqis, who are dying in their scores every day, is subordinated to more local concerns: which side can convince the public that they are standing their ground to protect the troops, and thereby force the other side to compromise before the money runs out. You would think this would be a slam-dunk for the Democrats. With approval ratings in the 30s, Bush is deeply unpopular. So is his war. According to a Rasmussen poll last week, 57% of Americans support either an immediate withdrawal (37%) or a deadline for withdrawal (20%), while 60% believe that his "surge" has either made things worse in Iraq or has made no difference. As though that were not enough, he will most likely sign the veto tomorrow, on the fourth anniversary of his "mission accomplished" speech. Not only is Bush weak, but so is his standing with the troops. Since he announced the surge, the US death toll has remained steady at around three a day, while the situation on the ground has deteriorated and the Iraqi government has disintegrated. Last month came the debacle at Walter Reed hospital, where wounded veterans testified to lying in rooms infested with mice and cockroaches, with mould on the walls. Then last week came damaging testimony relating to two of the "war on terror's" greatest icons. The first, Jessica Lynch, was hailed as the plucky "Rambo from West Virginia" after she was captured in an ambush at Nassiriya early in the war and later rescued by US forces. "I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary," said Lynch at a Congressional hearing. The other was the family of Pat Tillman, a football star, who forwent a $9m contract to volunteer for the military. According to the defence department Tillman was killed by enemy combatants in Afghanistan in 2004 while leading an attempt to rescue US troops. Five weeks later they admitted he was killed by friendly fire. "We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public," said Kevin Tillman, Pat's brother. "Pat's death was clearly the result of fratricide [friendly fire] ... the truth needed to be suppressed." And so the world Bush occupies - where the war is justified, conditions on the ground are improving, and democracy in the Middle East will flourish - keeps getting smaller. Even those he cast as heroes no longer wish to share the stage with him. All of this provides ample space for the Democrats to establish an alternative narrative for both supporting the troops and stopping the war. One that says the best way to support them is to remove them from a war they cannot win, and return them home where they will be cared for. An opportunity to represent the people who elected them, implement their mandate, and in so doing fulfil their constitutional duty to check and then balance executive power. Like most acts of principle, making this move carries significant political risk. But not making it carries the certainty of thousands more dead Iraqis and hundreds more dead soldiers. A CBS-New York Times poll shows only 36% back withholding funds if the president uses his veto. That is where leadership comes in: the Democrats have yet to prove their ability to win people over to a course of action they believe is both justified and necessary. Who knows how many people would support them if they made the case for it. Who knows how many would have opposed the war if they'd been asked. The war is over. To postpone withdrawal is simply to prolong the agony. Yet it seems the Democrats are set to cave in on their demand of setting a timetable, agreeing instead to "non-binding benchmarks" on the Iraqi government, an impotent body that lacks authority and legitimacy. That would not be compromise but capitulation. This is only the second time Bush has used his veto. The first was six months ago, to stop a bill on embryonic stem-cell research becoming law. The bill, he said, "would support the taking of innocent human life ... and crosses a moral boundary our decent society needs to respect". Would that he lavished so much care on human life that has evolved beyond a collection of cells. Would that his moral boundaries stretched beyond the green zone. Would that he had an opposition worthy of the name. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...2068623,00.html

The dominant role of money in US politics is widely acknowledged but all too rarely interrogated. The corruption scandals that made the news last year flouted the letter of the law but did not violate its spirit. Money buys access; access begets influence. It is as close to a textbook definition of corruption as you can get - but it's still legal. "We have created a culture in which there's no distinction between what is illegal and what is unethical," says the former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. The Bush administration did not invent this culture but it has exacerbated it. Registered lobbyists have doubled in George Bush's tenure and they now spend around $25m per politician each year to leverage their agendas. But even as money has cemented its place on the American political landscape, so the internet has enabled a countervailing tendency that could yet allow the green shoots of genuine democratic engagement to break through. The technology by itself does nothing. But when a message or candidate grabs the popular imagination it is the most effective way to fill the vacuum and challenge established hierarchies. We have no idea yet what role the internet will play in next year's presidential election. First, it is too early in the process. Second, the pace at which the medium is developing means that the campaigning tool of choice probably has not been invented yet. Back in 2003 it took Howard Dean six months to compile an email list of 139,000. But that was before networking sites such as MySpace. In less than two months Barack Obama has gathered more than 310,000 supporters on Facebook.com. What is certain is that the internet will play a vital, possibly decisive, role; and in all likelihood that role will come into conflict with the established kingmakers. Neither trend is new. But the power of money and the modem are both driven by different and, arguably, contradictory forces. At some stage something will have to give. Almost two years before polling day we have already seen the pitfalls and the potential. John Edwards let two hired bloggers go after a coordinated Christian conservative attack against them. One had described President Bush's supporters as his "wingnut Christofascist base". Tame stuff, given the adversarial tone of the blogosphere; a disaster, given the all-American nature of an American presidential campaign. A few weeks earlier Obama attended a 3,000-strong rally at George Mason University organised by Students for Barack Obama, a group set up by Meredith Segal on Facebook. It now has more than 62,000 members and chapters at more than 80 colleges, a field operations director, an internet director, a finance director and a blog team director. Segal met Obama for the first time at the rally. While these tensions may play out as a battle between left and right, or doves and hawks, they will in essence represent a far more fundamental shift in the relationship of the professional political class with the politically engaged public - a struggle between the popular and the oligarchic, between the bespoke message of the paid consultant and the chaos of freewheeling public opinion. Sadly, it won't change the centrality of money in American politics - the internet is a crucial fundraising tool. But by enabling thousands of small donors to contribute, it has already proved its potential to provide an alternative funding base. In the past, US political parties have done little more than raise money and get out the vote. They are not forums for debate and persuasion. Beyond polling day they have no organic relationship with the people who vote for them or the communities where their support is based (a trend fast installing itself in the UK). They call for your money and they call for your vote. You write a cheque and pull a lever. No wonder Anna Nicole Smith draws more interest. The upcoming election is only the second time the web has had a chance to challenge this. Three years ago the internet was instrumental in the Democratic primaries. It explained Howard Dean's stunning ascent from obscurity to insurgency at a time when anti-war views were popular and marginalised. It also explains his equally stunning descent. The web helped make his campaign viable. But with insufficient organisation and an inadequate candidate, it could not make it winnable. We should have no illusions about who has the upper hand in this battle between big money and burgeoning activism. At a meeting in New York to support Hillary Clinton last week, organised through Meetup.com, the host told us that since Hillary had the votes of New Yorkers sewn up, all she really needed the town for was money. Over the next 45 minutes there was no political discussion - about Hillary's healthcare, the war or trade. Just how could the assembled pry money from the little people without giving them access to the candidate. Might they host a house party and charge friends $25 to watch Clinton do a webcast? Not an alternative source of funding but an additional one for the candidate who spent $27,000 on valet parking and $13,000 on flowers in November. "She does house parties in Park Avenue," said the host without a blush. "But she's not going to come to our house." It suits the mythology of meritocracy that remains so central to American identity to have young children walking around in T-shirts saying "Future president of America". But the truth is if your kid really does stand a chance at the top office, he'll already be wearing more expensive attire. America's class system is now more rigid than most in Europe, and that sclerosis is given full expression at the highest levels of politics. Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, Chicago mayor Richard Daley and Southern Christian Leadership Conference head Martin Luther King all carry the names and job titles of their fathers. Each year the richest quarter per cent make 80% of all political donations. The last time there was not a Clinton or a Bush on the presidential ticket was 1976. This is not democracy, it is dynasty. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6419275.stm

Robert Gates, the new defence secretary, recently insisted: "I don't know how many times the president, secretary [of state Condoleezza] Rice and I have had to repeat that we have no intention of attacking Iran." The sad fact is Gates can say it as many times as he likes because no one believes him. In April 2002, Bush told Trevor McDonald: "I have no plans to attack [iraq] on my desk." An $8 cab ride to the Pentagon and Bush would have found the plans on Donald Rumsfeld's desk. He knew this because he put them there four months earlier. On November 21 2001, he asked Rumsfeld: "What kind of war plan do you have for Iraq?" True they are pursuing diplomatic avenues to derail Iran's nuclear programme, but we now know that this may be little more than a sideshow. The day before Iraq was due to let in UN weapons inspectors, Bush told Rumsfeld and the head of central command, General Tommy Franks, to "dissociate a big deployment or build-up from what Colin [Powell] is doing on the diplomatic front ... Don't make it look like I have no choice but to invade". The aim here isn't to reprosecute the case against the Iraq war - in almost every venue but the White House and Downing Street that has been won - but to illustrate that the duplicities from that war and a possible next one are playing out concurrently. Whatever excuses people make for backing an attack on Iran, what they can't say is they didn't know. Nor does it mean America will attack tomorrow. But it does mean they are almost ready to attack today. "Targets have been selected," says Vincent Cannistraro, a US intelligence analyst. "For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place. We are planning for war." These plans run not in historical parallel with the period before the attack on Iraq, but rather in lockstep with the current situation there. They do not so much replicate the preparations as seek to exploit the dire situation caused by the invasion. For the time being, US focus has shifted from Iran's desire to acquire a nuclear bomb - a development that should be resisted by diplomatic means, because it will undermine prospects of stability and peace in the region - to its involvement in Iraq. The accusation is that the Iranians are supplying insurgents with a bomb known as the "explosively formed penetrator", which, the Pentagon says, is responsible for killing at least 170 US military personnel and wounding a further 620. Bush claims these weapons were provided by Quds, an elite branch of the Iranian military. He admits he has no idea whether the Iranian government is involved or not. There are a few problems with this. First, the US is in no position to condemn other countries for meddling in the foreign affairs of Iraq. Second, the administration's credibility, like Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, is non-existent. Recently, the Pentagon's inspector general, Thomas Gimble, slammed Rumsfeld underling Douglas Feith for wilfully contorting intelligence about links between Iraq and al-Qaida in order to justify the Iraq war. Feith compiled a briefing that was "inappropriate" with conclusions that were "not fully supported by the available intelligence", concluded Gimble, who fell just short of branding Feith an outright xxxx. But most importantly, the region's biggest obstacle to peace and stability is not Iran but the US. The invasion of Iraq has both bolstered Iran's standing by installing a friendly Shia regime in Baghdad, and given Iran every reason to arm itself for fear of imminent attack from US bases now embedded on its border. Each time the White House issues threats against Iran, it strengthens the crude, anti-semitic prime minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who can rally the nation around a foreign enemy - a strategy with which Bush is all too familiar. "We have to throw away the notion the US could not do it because it is too tied up in Iraq," says Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former US air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target. "It is an air operation." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...2016222,00.html

Robert Gates, the new defence secretary, recently insisted: "I don't know how many times the president, secretary [of state Condoleezza] Rice and I have had to repeat that we have no intention of attacking Iran." The sad fact is Gates can say it as many times as he likes because no one believes him. In April 2002, Bush told Trevor McDonald: "I have no plans to attack [iraq] on my desk." An $8 cab ride to the Pentagon and Bush would have found the plans on Donald Rumsfeld's desk. He knew this because he put them there four months earlier. On November 21 2001, he asked Rumsfeld: "What kind of war plan do you have for Iraq?" True they are pursuing diplomatic avenues to derail Iran's nuclear programme, but we now know that this may be little more than a sideshow. The day before Iraq was due to let in UN weapons inspectors, Bush told Rumsfeld and the head of central command, General Tommy Franks, to "dissociate a big deployment or build-up from what Colin [Powell] is doing on the diplomatic front ... Don't make it look like I have no choice but to invade". The aim here isn't to reprosecute the case against the Iraq war - in almost every venue but the White House and Downing Street that has been won - but to illustrate that the duplicities from that war and a possible next one are playing out concurrently. Whatever excuses people make for backing an attack on Iran, what they can't say is they didn't know. Nor does it mean America will attack tomorrow. But it does mean they are almost ready to attack today. "Targets have been selected," says Vincent Cannistraro, a US intelligence analyst. "For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place. We are planning for war." These plans run not in historical parallel with the period before the attack on Iraq, but rather in lockstep with the current situation there. They do not so much replicate the preparations as seek to exploit the dire situation caused by the invasion. For the time being, US focus has shifted from Iran's desire to acquire a nuclear bomb - a development that should be resisted by diplomatic means, because it will undermine prospects of stability and peace in the region - to its involvement in Iraq. The accusation is that the Iranians are supplying insurgents with a bomb known as the "explosively formed penetrator", which, the Pentagon says, is responsible for killing at least 170 US military personnel and wounding a further 620. Bush claims these weapons were provided by Quds, an elite branch of the Iranian military. He admits he has no idea whether the Iranian government is involved or not. There are a few problems with this. First, the US is in no position to condemn other countries for meddling in the foreign affairs of Iraq. Second, the administration's credibility, like Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, is non-existent. Recently, the Pentagon's inspector general, Thomas Gimble, slammed Rumsfeld underling Douglas Feith for wilfully contorting intelligence about links between Iraq and al-Qaida in order to justify the Iraq war. Feith compiled a briefing that was "inappropriate" with conclusions that were "not fully supported by the available intelligence", concluded Gimble, who fell just short of branding Feith an outright xxxx. But most importantly, the region's biggest obstacle to peace and stability is not Iran but the US. The invasion of Iraq has both bolstered Iran's standing by installing a friendly Shia regime in Baghdad, and given Iran every reason to arm itself for fear of imminent attack from US bases now embedded on its border. Each time the White House issues threats against Iran, it strengthens the crude, anti-semitic prime minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who can rally the nation around a foreign enemy - a strategy with which Bush is all too familiar. "We have to throw away the notion the US could not do it because it is too tied up in Iraq," says Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former US air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target. "It is an air operation." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...2016222,00.html